Pekudei – Rishon

The First Jewish Accountant

By Rabbi Jack Abramowitz

Aharon’s son Itamar kept the records of the materials donated for the building of the Mishkan. There were 29 talents and 730 shekels of gold. (A talent is 3,000 shekels. This is well over a ton of gold even by the more conservative estimates. More likely, it was around two tons of gold.) The silver came to 100 talents and 1,775 shekels, collected from the half-shekel a head census commanded at the beginning of parshas Ki Sisa. The copper collected totaled 70 talents and 2,400 shekels.